Q97 
PITf 

1898 

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CM 

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SELF-CULTIVATION 
IN  ENGLISH 

AND 

THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

BY 
GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 


C.  This  helpful  volume,  full  of  sensible 
suggestion  concerning  a  most  im- 
portant subject,  is  regarded  as  a 
classic  on  "the  mastery  of  English 
for  use  as  a  tool." 

C.  The  book  is  itself  an  embodiment 
of  the  ideals  Professor  Palmer  sets 
before  his  readers.  No  other  book 
presents  this  theme  at  once  so  com- 
pactly  and  attractively. 

LARGE    TYPE    EDITION 


Self-Cultivation  in  English 


AND 


The  Glory  of  the  Imperfect 


BY 

GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER,  LL.D. 

ALFORD  PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS   Y.    CROWELL   COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN 
ENGLISH 

The  following  paper  is  a  Commencement  Address,  deliv- 
ered at  the  University  of  Michigan. 

G.  H.  P.- 
ENGLISH study  has  four  aims :  the  mastery  of 
our  language  as  a  science,  as  a  history,  as  a  joy, 
and  as  a  tool.  I  am  concerned  with  but  one,  the 
mastery  of^it  as^a  topi.  Philology  and  grammar 
present  it  as  a  science ;  the  one  attempting  to  fol- 
low its  words,  the  other  its  sentences,  through  all 
the  intricacies  of  their  growth,  and  so  to  manifest 
laws  which  lie  hidden  in  these  airy  products  no 
less  than  in  the  moving  stars  or  the  myriad  flowers 
of  spring.  Fascinating  and  important  as  all  this 
is,  I  do  not  recommend  it  here.  For  I  want  to  call 
attention  only  to  that  sort  of  English  study  which 
can  be  carried  on  without  any  large  apparatus  of 
books.  For  a  reason  similar,  though  less  cogent, 
I  do  not  urge  historical  study.  Probably  the  cur- 
rent of  English  literature  is  more  attractive 
through  its  continuity  than  that  of  any  other 
.nation.  Notable  works  in  verse  and  prose  have 
appeared  in  long  succession,  and  without  gaps  in- 

5 


6  SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH 

tervening,  in  a  way  that  wciul^  be  hard  to  parallel 
in  any  other  language  known  to  man.  A  boun- 
teous endowment  this  for  every  English  speaker, 
and  one  which  should  stimulate  us  to  trace  the 
marvellous  and  close-linked  progress  from  the 
times  of  the  Saxons  to  those  of  Tennyson  and 
Kipling.  Literature,  too,  has  this  advantage  over 
every  other  species  of  art  study,  that  everybody 
can  examine  the  original  masterpieces  and  not 
depend  on  reproductions,  as  in  the  cases  of  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  and  architecture ;  or  on  intermedi- 
ate interpretation,  as  in  the  case  of  music.  To- 
day most  of  these  masterpieces  can  be  bought  for 
a  trifle,  and  even  a  poor  man  can  follow  through 
centuries  the  thoughts  of  his  ancestors.  But  even 
so,  ready  of  access  as  it  is,  English  can  be  studied 
as  a  history  only  at  the  cost  of  solid  time  and  con- 
tinuous attention,  much  more  time  than  the  major- 
ity of  those  I  am  addressing  can  afford.  By  most 
of  us  our  mighty  literature  cannot  be  taken  in  its 
continuous  current,  the  later  stretches  proving 
interesting  through  relation  with  the  earlier.  It 
must  be  taken  fragmentarily,  if  at  all,  the  atten- 
tion delaying  on  those  parts  only  which  offer  the 
greatest  beauty  or  promise  the  best  exhilaration. 
In  other  words,  English  may  be  possible  as  a  joy 
where  it  is  not  possible  as  a  history.  In  the  end- 
less wealth  which  our  poetry,  story,  essay,  and 
drama  afford,  every  disposition  may  find  its  ap- 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH  7 

propriate  nutriment,  correction,  or  solace.  He  is 
unwise,  however  busy,  who  does  not  have  his 
loved  authors,  veritable  friends  with  whom  he 
takes  refuge  in  the  intervals  of  work,  and  by 
whose  intimacy  he  enlarges,  refines,  sweetens,  and 
emboldens  his  own  limited  existence.  Yet  the  fact 
that  English  as  a  joy  must  largely  be  conditioned 
by  individual  taste  prevents  me  from  offering 
general  rules  for  its  pursuit.  The  road  which 
leads  one  man  straight  to  this  joy  leads  another 
to  tedium.  In  all  literary  enjoyment  there  is 
something  incalculable,  something  wayward,  elud- 
ing the  precision  of  rule,  and  rendering  inexact  the 
precepts  of  him  who  would  point  out  the  path  to 
it.  While  I  believe  that  many  suggestions  may  be 
made,  useful  to  the  young  enjoyer,  and  pro- 
motive  of  his  wise  vagrancy,  I  shall  not  under- 
take here  the  complicated  task  of  offering  them. 
Let  enjoyment  go,  let  history  go,  let  science  go, 
and  still  English  remains  —  English  as  a  tool. 
Every  hour  our  language  is  an  engine  for  com- 
municating with  others,  every  instant  for  fashion- 
ing the  thoughts  of  our  own  minds.  I  want  to  call 
attention  to  the  means  of  mastering  this  curious 
and  essential  tool,  and  to  lead  every  one  who  hears 
me  to  become  discontented  with  his  employment 
of  it. 

The  importance  of  literary  power  needs  no  long 
argument.    Everybody  acknowledges  it,  and  sees 


8  SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH 

that  without  it  all  other  human  faculties  are 
maimed.  Shakespeare  says  that  Death  "  insults 
o'er  dull  and  speechless  tribes."  But  Life  no  less 
than  death  insults  over  the  speechless  person.  So 
mutually  dependent  are  we  that  on  our  swift  and 
full  communication  with  one  another  is  staked  the 
success  of  almost  every  scheme  we  form.  He  who 
can  explain  himself  may  command  what  he  wants. 
He  who  cannot  is  left  to  the  poverty  of  individual 
resource;  for  men  do  what  we  desire  only  when 
persuaded.  The  persuasive  and  explanatory 
tongue  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  chief  levers  of 
life.  Its  leverage  is  felt  within  us  as  well  as 
without,  for  expression  and  thought  are  integrally 
bound  together.  We  do  not  first  possess  com- 
pleted thoughts,  and  then  express  them.  The  very 
formation  of  the  outward  product  extends,  sharp- 
ens, enriches  the  mind  which  produces,  so  that  he 
who  gives  forth  little,  after  a  time  is  likely  enough 
to  discover  that  he  has  little  to  give  forth.  By 
expression,  too,  we  may  carry  our  benefits  and 
our  names  to  a  far  generation.  This  durable 
character  of  fragile  language  puts  a  wide  differ- 
ence of  worth  between  it  and  some  of  the  other 
great  objects  of  desire, — health,  wealth,  and 
beauty,  for  example.  These  are  notoriously  liable 
to  accident.  We  tremble  while  we  have  them. 
But  literary  power,  once  ours,  is  more  likely  than 
any  other  possession  to  be  ours  always.  It  per- 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH  9 

petuates  and  enlarges  itself  by  the  very  fact  of  its 
existence,  and  perishes  only  with  the  decay  of 
the  man  himself.  For  this  reason,  because  more 
than  health,  wealth,  and  beauty,  literary  style  may 
be  called  the  man,  good  judges  have  found  in  it 
the  final  test  of  culture,  and  have  said  that  he,  and 
he  alone,  is  a  well-educated  person  who  uses  his 
language  with  power  and  beauty.  The  supreme 
and  ultimate  product  of  civilization,  it  has  well 
been  said,  is  two  or  three  persons  talking  together 
in  a  room.  Between  ourselves  and  our  language 
there  accordingly  springs  up  an  association  pecu- 
liarly close.  [We  are  as  sensitive  to  criticism  of 
our  speech  as  of  our  manners.  The  young  man 
looks  up  with  awe  to  him  who  has  written  a  book, 
as  already  half  divine ;  and  the  graceful  speaker 
is  a  universal  object  of  envy. 

But  the  very  fact  that  literary  endowment  is 
immediately  recognized  and  eagerly  envied  has 
induced  a  strange  illusion  in  regard  to  it.  It  is 
supposed  to  be  something  mysterious,  innate  in 
him  who  possesses  it,  and  quite  out  of  the  reach 
of  him  who  has  it  not.  The  very  contrary  is  the 
fact.  (No  human  employment  is  more  free  and 
calculable  than  the  winning  of  language.!  Un- 
doubtedly there  are  natural  aptitudes  for  it,  as 
there  are  for  farming,  seamanship,  or  being  a 
good  husband.  But  nowhere  is  straight  work 
more  effective.  Persistence,  care,  discriminating 


10          SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH 

observation,  ingenuity,  refusal  to  lose  heart, — 
traits  which  in  every  other  occupation  tend 
toward  excellence, — tend  toward  it  here  with  spe- 
cial security.  Whoever  goes  to  his  grave  with 
bad  English  in  his  mouth  has  no  one  to  blame  but 
himself  for  the  disagreeable  taste;  for  if  faulty 
speech  can  be  inherited,  it  can  be  exterminated 
too.  I  hope  to  point  out  some  of  the  methods  of 
substituting  good  English  for  bad.  And  since  my 
space  is  brief,  and  I  wish  to  be  remembered,  I 
throw  what  I  have  to  say  into  the  form  of  four 
simple  precepts,  which,  if  pertinaciously  obeyed, 
will,  I  believe,  give  anybody  effective  mastery  of 
English  as  a  tool. 

First,  then,  "Look  well  to  your  speech. "  It  is 
commonly  supposed  that  when  a  man  seeks  liter- 
ary power  he  goes  to  his  room  and  plans  ,an  article 
for  the  press.  But  this  is  to  begin  literary  culture 
at  the  wrong  end.  "We  speak  a  hundred  times  for 
every  once  we  write.  The  busiest  writer  produces 
little  more  than  a  volume  a  year,  not  so  much  as 
his  talk  would  amount  to  in  a  week.  Conse- 
quently through  speech  it  is  usually  decided 
whether  a  man  is  to  have  command  of  his  lan- 
guage or  not.  If  he  is  slovenly  in  his  ninety-nine 
cases  of  talking,  he  can  seldom  pull  himself  up  to 
strength  and  exactitude  in  the  hundredth  case  of 
writing.  A  person  is  made  in  one  piece,  and  the 
same  being  runs  through  a  multitude  of  perform- 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH  11 

ances.  Whether  words  are  uttered  on  paper  or  to 
the  air,  the  effect  on  the  utterer  is  the  same. 
Vigor  or  feebleness  results  according  as  energy' 
or  slackness  has  been  in  command.  I  know  that 
certain  adaptations  to  a  new  field  are  often  nec- 
essary. A  good  speaker  may  find  awkwardnesses 
in  himself  when  he  comes  to  write,  a  good  writer 
when  he  speaks.  And  certainly  cases  occnr  where 
a  man  exhibits  distinct  strength  in  one  of  the  two, 
speaking  or  writing,  and  not  in  the  other.  But 
such  cases  are  rare.  As  a  rule,  language  once 
within  our  control  can  be  employed  for  oral  or 
for  written  purposes.  And  since  the  opportuni- 
ties for  oral  practice  enormously  outbalance  those 
for  written,  it  is  the  oral  which  are  chiefly  sig- 
nificant in  the  development  of  literary  power.  We 
rightly  say  of  the  accomplished  writer  that  he 
shows  a  mastery  of  his  own  tongue. 

This  predominant  influence  of  speech  marks 
nearly  all  great  epochs  of  literature.  The  Homeric 
poems  are  addressed  to  the  ear,  not  to  the  eye. 
It  is  doubtful  if  Homer  knew  writing,  certain  that 
he  knew  profoundly  every  quality  of  the  tongue,— 
veracity,  vividness,  shortness  of  sentence,  simpli- 
city of  thought,  obligation  to  insure  swift  appre- 
hension. Writing  and  rigidity  are  apt  to  go 
together.  In  these  smooth-slipping  verses  one 
catches  everywhere  the  voice.  So,  too,  the  aphor- 
isms of  Hesiod  might  naturally  pass  from  mouth 


12  SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH 

to  mouth,  and  the  stories  of  Herodotus  be  told  by 
an  old  man  at  the  fireside.  Early  Greek  literature 
is  plastic  and  garrulous.  Its  distinctive  glory  is 
that  it  contains  no  literary  note ;  that  it  gives  forth 
human  feeling  not  in  conventional  arrangement, 
but  with  apparent  spontaneity — in  short,  that  it  is 
speech  literature,  not  book  literature.  And  the 
same  tendency  continued  long  among  the  Greeks. 
At  the  culmination  of  their  power,  the  drama  was 
their  chief  literary  form, — the  drama,  which  is  but 
speech  ennobled,  connected,  clarified.  Plato,  too, 
following  the  dramatic  precedent  and  the  prece- 
dent of  his  talking  master,  accepted  conversation 
as  his  medium  for  philosophy,  and  imparted  to  it 
the  vivacity,  ease,  waywardness  even,  which  the 
best  conversation  exhibits.  Nor  was  the  experi- 
ence of  the  Greeks  peculiar.  Our  literature  shows 
a  similar  tendency.  Its  bookish  times  are  its  de- 
cadent times,  its  talking  times  its  glory.  Chaucer, 
like  Herodotus,  is  a  story-teller,  and  follows  the 
lead  of  those  who  on  the  Continent  entertained 
courtly  circles  with  pleasant  tales.  Shakespeare 
and  his  fellows  in  the  spacious  times  of  great 
Elizabeth  did  not  concern  themselves  with  publica- 
tion. Marston,  in  one  of  his  prefaces,  thinks  it 
necessary  to  apologize  for  putting  his  piece  in 
print,  and  says  he  would  not  have  done  such  a 
thing  if  unscrupulous  persons,  hearing  the  play  at 
the  theatre,  had  not  already  printed  corrupt  ver- 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH          13 

sions  of  it.  Even  the  " Queen  Anne's  men,"  far 
removed  though  they  are  from  anything  dramatic, 
still  shape  their  ideals  of  literature  by  demands  of 
speech.  The  essays  of  the  Spectator,  the  poems 
of  Pope,  are  the  remarks  of  a  cultivated  gentleman 
at  an  evening  party.  Here  is  the  brevity,  the  good 
taste,  the  light  touch,  the  neat  epigram,  the  avoid- 
ance of  whatever  might  stir  passion,  controversy, 
or  laborious  thought,  which  characterize  the  con- 
versation of  a  well-bred  man.  Indeed,  it  is  hard 
to  see  how  any  literature  can  be  long  vital  which 
is  based  on  the  thought  of  a  book  and  not  on  that 
of  living  utterance.  Unless  the  speech  notion  is 
uppermost,  words  will  not  run  swiftly  to  their 
mark.  They  delay  in  delicate  phrasings  while 
naturalness  and  a  sense  of  reality  disappear. 
Women  are  the  best  talkers.  I  sometimes  please 
myself  with  noticing  that  three  of  the  greatest 
periods  of  English  literature  coincide  with  the 

4  reigns  of  the  three  English  queens. 
/  Fortunate  it  is,  then,  that  self-cultivation  in  the 

*  use  of  English  must  chiefly  come  through  speech ; 
because  we  are  always  speaking,  whatever  else 
we  do.  In  opportunities  for  acquiring  a  mastery 
of  language,  the  poorest  and  busiest  are  at  no 
large  disadvantage  as  compared  with  the  leisured 
rich.  It  is  true  the  strong  impulse  which  comes 
from  the  suggestion  and  approval  of  society  may 
in  some  cases  be  absent,  but  this  can  be  compen- 


14          SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH 

sated  by  the  sturdy  purpose  of  the  learner.  A 
recognition  of  the  beauty  of  well-ordered  words, 
a  strong  desire,  patience  under  discouragements, 
and  promptness  in  counting  every  occasion  as 
of  consequence, — these  are  the  simple  agencies 
which  sweep  one  on  to  power.  Watch  your 
speech,  then.  That  is  all  which  is  needed.  Only 
it  is  desirable  to  know  what  qualities  of  speech 
to  watch  for.  I  find  three, — accuracy,  audacity, 
and  range, — and  I  will  say  a  few  words  about 
each.  // 

$  ./'Obviously,  good  English  is  exact  English.  Our 
words  should  fit  our  thoughts  like  a  glove,  and  be 
neither  too  wide  nor  too  tight.  If  too  wide,  they 
will  include  much  vacuity  beside  the  intended 
matter.  If  too  tight,  they  will  check  the  strong 
grasp.  Of  the  two  dangers,  looseness  is  by  far 
the  greater.  There  are  people  who  say  what  they 
mean  with  such  a  naked  precision  that  nobody  not 
familiar  with  the  subject  can  quickly  catch  the 
sense.  George  Herbert  and  Emerson  strain  the 
attention  of  many.  But  niggardly  and  angular 
speakers  are  rare.  Too  frequently  words  signify 
nothing  in  particular.  They  are  merely  thrown 
out  in  a  certain  direction,  to  report  a  vague  and 
undetermined  meaning  or  even  a  general  emotion. 
The  first  business  of  every  one  who  would  train 
himself  in  language  is  to  articulate  his  thought, 
to  know  definitely  what  he  wishes  to  say,  and  then 


SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH          15 

to  pick  those  words  which  compel  the  hearer  to 
think  of  this  and  only  this.  For  such  a  purpose 
two  words  are  often  better  than  three.  The  fewer 
the  words,  the  more  pungent  the  impression. 
Brevity  is  the  soul  not  simply  of  a  jest,  but  of  wit 
in  its  finest  sense  where  it  is  identical  with  wis- 
dom. He  who  can  put  a  great  deal  into  a  little 
is  the  master.  Since  firm  texture  is  what  is 
wanted,  not  embroidery  or  superposed  ornament, 
beauty  has  been  well  defined  as  the  purgation  of 
(Superfluities.  And  certainly  many  a  paragraph 
might  have  its  beauty  brightened  by  letting  quiet 
words  take  the  place  of  its  loud  words,  omitting 
its  "verys,"  and  striking  out  its  purple  patches 
of  "fine  writing."  Here  is  Ben  Jonson's  descrip- 
tion of  Bacon's  language:  "There  happened  in 
my  time  one  noble  speaker  who  was  full  of  gravity 
in  his  speech.  No  man  ever  spoke  more  neatly, 
more  pressly,  more  weightily,  or  suffered  less 
emptiness,  less  idleness,  in  what  he  uttered.  No 
member  of  his  speech  but  consisted  of  his  own 
graces.  His  hearers  could  not  cough  or  look  aside 
without  loss.  He  commanded  when  he  spoke,  and 
had  his  judges  angry  or  pleased  at  his  discretion. " 
Such  are  the  men  who  command,  men  who  speak 
"neatly  and  pressly. "  But  to  gain  such  precision 
is  toilsome  business.  While  we  are  in  training  for 
it,  no  word  must  unpermittedly  pass  the  portal  of 
the  teeth.  Something  like  what  we  mean  must 


16  SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH 

never  be  counted  equivalent  to  what  we  mean. 
And  if  we  are  not  sure  of  our  meaning  or  of  our 
word,  we  must  pause  until  we  are  sure.  Accuracy 
[does  not  come  of  itself.  For  persons  who  can  use 
several  languages,  capital  practice  in  acquiring  it 
can  be  had  by  translating  from  one  language  to 
another  and  seeing  that  the  entire  sense  is  carried 
over.  Those  who  have  only  their  native  speech 
will  find  it  profitable  often  to  attempt  definitions 
of  the  common  words  they  use.  Inaccuracy  will 
not  stand  up  against  the  habit  of  definition.  Dante 
boasted  that  no  rhythmic  exigency  had  ever  made 
him  say  what  he  did  not  mean.  We  heedless  and 
unintending  speakers,  under  no  exigency  of  rhyme 
or  reason,  say  what  we  mean  but  seldom  and  still 
more  seldom  mean  what  we  say.  To  hold  our 
thoughts  and  words  in  significant  adjustment  re- 
quires unceasing  consciousness,  a  perpetual  de- 
termination not  to  tell  lies;  for  of  course  every 
inaccuracy  is  a  bit  of  untruthfulness.  We  have 
something  in  mind,  yet  convey  something  else  to 
our  hearer.  And  no  moral  purpose  will  save  us 
from  this  untruthfulness  unless  that  purpose  is 
sufficient  to  inspire  the  daily  drill  which  brings 
the  power  to  be  true.  Again  and  again  we  are 
shut  up  to  evil  because  we  have  not  acquired  the 


.       ability  of  goodness.  / 
'•  /    But  after  all,  I  hope  tha 


that  nobody  who  hears  me 
will  quite  agree.     There  is  something  enervating 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH          17 

in  conscious  care.  Necessary  as  it  is  in  shaping 
our  purposes,  if  allowed  too  direct  and  exclusive 
control  consciousness  breeds  hesitation  and  fee- 
bleness. Action  is  not  excellent,  at  least,  until 
spontaneous.  In  piano-playing  we  begin  by  pick- 
ing out  each  separate  note ;  but  we  do  not  call  the 
result  music  until  we  play  our  notes  by  the  hand- 
ful, heedless  how  each  is  formed.  And  so  it  is 
everywhere.  Consciously  selective  conduct  is  ele- 
mentary and  inferior.  People  distrust  it,  or  rather 
they  distrust  him  who  exhibits  it.  If  anybody 
talking  to  us  visibly  studies  his  words,  we  turn 
away.  What  he  says  may  be  well  enough  as  school 
exercise,  but  it  is  not  conversation.  Accordingly, 
if  we  would  have  our  speech  forcible,  we  shall 
need  to  put  into  it  quite  as  much  of  audacity  as 
we  do  of  precision,  terseness,  or  simplicity.  Ac- 
curacy alone  is  not  a  thing  to  be  sought,  but 
accuracy  and  dash.  Of  Patrick  Henry,  the  orator 
who  more  than  any  other  could  craze  our  Revolu- 
tionary fathers,  it  was  said  that  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  throw  himself  headlong  into  the  middle 
of  a  sentence,  trusting  to  God  Almighty  to  get  him 
out.  So  must  we  speak.  We  must  not,  before 
beginning  a  sentence,  decide  what  the  end  shall 
be;  for  if  we  do,  nobody  will  care  to  hear  that 
end.  At  the  beginning,  it  is  the  beginning  which 
claims  the  attention  of  both  speaker  and  listener, 
and  trepidation  about  going  on  will  mar  all.  We 


18          SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH 

must  give  our  thought  its  head,  and  not  drive  it 
with  too  tight  a  rein,  nor  grow  timid  when  it  be- 
gins to  prance  a  bit.  Of  course  we  must  retain 
coolness  in  courage,  applying  the  results  of  our 
previous  discipline  in  accuracy;  but  we  need  not 
move  so  slowly  as  to  become  formal.  Pedantry 
is  worse  than  blundering.  If  we  care  for  grace 
and  flexible  beauty  of  language,  we  must  learn  to 
let  our  thought  run.  Would  it,  then,  be  too  much 
of  an  Irish  bull  to  say  that  in  acquiring  English 
we  need  to  cultivate  spontaneity!  The  unculti- 
vated kind  is  not  worth  much ;  it  is  wild  and  hap- 
hazard stuff,  unadjusted  to  its  uses.  On  the  other 
hand,  no  speech  is  of  much  account,  however  just, 
which  lacks  the  element  of  courage.  Accuracy 
and  dash,  then,  the  combination  of  the  two,  must 
be  our  difficult  aim ;  and  we  must  not  rest  satisfied 
so  long  as*  either  dwells  with  us  alone. 

But  are  the  two  so  hostile  as  they  at  first  ap- 
pear? Or  can,  indeed,  the  first  be  obtained  with- 
out the  aid  of  the  second?  Supposing  we  are 
convinced  that  words  possess  no  value  in  them- 
selves, and  are  correct  or  incorrect  only  as  they 
truly  report  experience,  we  shall  feel  ourselves 
impelled  in  the  mere  interest  of  accuracy  to  choose 
them  freshly,  and  to  put  them  together  in  ways  in 
which  they  never  co-operated  before^so  as  to  set 
forth  with  distinctness  that  which  just  we,  not 
other  people,  have  seen  or  felt.  The  reason  why 


SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH          19 

we  do  not  naturally  have  this  daring  exactitude 
is  probably  twofold.  We  let  our  experiences  be 
blurred,  not  observing  sharply,  nor  knowing  with 
any  minuteness  what  we  are  thinking  about,  and 
so  there  is  no  individuality  in  our  language.  And 
then,  besides,  we  are  terrorized  by  custom,  and 
inclined  to  adjust  what  we  would  say  to  what 
others  have  said  before.  The  cure  for  the  first 
of  these  troubles  is  to  keep  our  eye  on  our  object, 
instead  of  on  our  listener  or  ourselves;  and  for 
the  second,  to  learn  to  rate  the  expressiveness  of 
language  more  highly  than  its  correctness.  The 
opposite  of  this,  the  disposition  to  set  correctness 
above  expressiveness,  produces  that  peculiarly 
vulgar  diction  known  as  "school-ma'am  English, " 
in  which  for  the  sake  of  a  dull  accord  with  usage 
all  the  picturesque,  imaginative,  and  forceful  em- 
ployment of  words  is  sacrificed.  Of  course  we 
must  use  words  so  that  people  can  understand 
them,  and  understand  them,  too,  with  ease;  but 
this  once  granted,  let  our  language  be  our  own, 
obedient  to  our  special  needs.  "Whenever,"  says 
Thomas  Jefferson,  "by  small  grammatical  negli- 
gences the  energy  of  an  idea  can  be  condensed,  or 
a  word  be  made  to  stand  for  a  sentence,  I  hold 
grammatical  rigor  in  contempt."  "Young  man," 
said  Henry  Ward  Beecher  to  one  who  was  point- 
ing out  grammatical  errors  in  a  sermon  of  his, 
"when  the  English  language  gets  in  my  way,  it 


20          SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH 

doesn't  stand  a  chance."  No  man  can  be  convinc- 
ing, writer  or  speaker,  who  is  afraid  to  send  his 
words  wherever  they  may  best  follow  his  mean- 
ing, and  this  with  but  little  regard  to  whether  any 
other  person's  words  have  ever  been  there  before. 
In  assessing  merit,  let  us  not  stupefy  ourselves 
with  using  negative  standards.  What  stamps  a 
man  as  great  is  not  freedom  from  faults,  but 
abundance  of  powers. 

Such  audacious  accuracy,  however,  distinguish- 
ing as  it  does  noble  speech  from  commonplace 
speech,  can  be  practiced  only  by  him  who  has  a 
wide  range  of  words.  Our  ordinary  range  is 
absurdly  narrow.  It  is  important,  therefore,  for 
anybody  who  would  cultivate  himself  in  English 
to  make  strenuous  and  systematic  efforts  to  en- 
large his  vocabulary.  Our  dictionaries  contain 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  words.  The  aver- 
age speaker  employs  about  three  thousand.  Is 
this  because  ordinary  people  have  only  three  or 
four  thousand  things  to  say?  Not  at  all.  It  is 
simply  due  to  dulness.  Listen  to  the  average 
school-boy.  He  has  a  dozen  or  two  nouns,  half 
a  dozen  verbs,  three  or  four  adjectives,  and  enough 
conjunctions  and  prepositions  to  stick  the  con- 
glomerate together.  This  ordinary  speech  de- 
serves the  description  which  Hobbes  gave  to  his 
State  of  Nature,  that  "it  is  solitary,  poor,  nasty, 
brutish,  and  short."  The  fact  is,  we  fall  into  the 
way  of  thinking  that  the  wealthy  words  are  for 
others  and  that  they  do  not  belong  to  us.  We  are 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH          21 

like  those  who  have  received  a  vast  inheritance, 
but  who  persist  in  the  inconveniences  of  hard 
beds,  scanty  food,  rude  clothing,  who  never  travel, 
and  who  limit  their  purchases  to  the  bleak  neces- 
sities of  life.  Ask  such  people  why  they  endure 
niggardly  living  while  wealth  in  plenty  is  lying 
in  the  bank,  and  they  can  only  answer  that  they 
have  never  learned  how  to  spend.  But  this  is 
worth  learning.  Milton  used  eight  thousand 
words,  Shakespeare  fifteen  thousand.  We  have 
all  the  subjects  to  talk  about  that  these  early 
speakers  had;  and  in  addition,  we  have  bicycles 
and  sciences  and  strikes  and  political  combina- 
tions and  all  the  complicated  living  of  the  mod- 
ern world. 

y  >/Why,  then,  do  we  hesitate  to  swell  our  words 
S  to  meet  our  needs?  It  is  a  nonsense  question. 
There  is  no  reason.  We  are  simply  lazy ;  too  lazy 
to  make  ourselves  comfortable.  WeTTet  our  vo- 
cabularies be  limited,  and  get  along  rawly  without 
the  refinements  of  human  intercourse,  without  re- 
finements in  our  own  thoughts;  for  thoughts  are 
almost  as  dependent  on  words  as  words  on 
thoughts.  For  example,  all  exasperations  we 
lump  together  as  "aggravating,"  not  considering 
whether  they  may  not  rather  be  displeasing,  an- 
noying, offensive,  disgusting,  irritating,  or  even 
maddening;  and  without  observing,  too,  that  in 
our  reckless  usage  we  have  burned  up  a  word 


22  SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH 

which  might  be  convenient  when  we  should  need 
to  mark  some  shading  of  the  word  " increase." 
Like  the  bad  cook,  we  seize  the  frying-pan  when- 
ever we  need  to  fry,  broil,  roast,  or  stew,  and  then 
we  wonder  why  all  our  dishes  taste  alike  while  in 
the  next  house  the  food  is  appetizing.  It  is  all 
unnecessary.  Enlarge  the  vocabulary.  Let  any 
one  who  wants  to  see  himself  grow,  resolve  to 
adopt  two  new  words  each  week.  It  will  not  be 
long  before  the  endless  and  enchanting  variety 
of  the  world  will  begin  to  reflect  itself  in  his 
speech,  and  in  his  mind  as  well.  I  know  that 
when  we  use  a  word  for  the  first  time  we  are 
startled,  as  if  a  fire-cracker  went  off  in  our  neigh- 
borhood. We  look  about  hastily  to  see  if  any  one 
has  noticed.  But  finding  that  no  one  has,  we  may 
be  emboldened.  A  word  used  three  times  slips 
off  the  tongue  with  entire  naturalness.  Then  it 
is  ours  forever,  and  with  it  some  phase  of  life 
which  had  been  lacking  hitherto.  For  each  word 
presents  its  own  point  of  view,  discloses  a  special 
aspect  of  things,  reports  some  little  importance 
not  otherwise  conveyed,  and  so  contributes  its 
small  emancipation  to  our  tied-up  minds  and 
tongues. 

Kut  a  brief  warning  may  be  necessary  to  make 
meaning  clear.    In  urging  the  addition  of  new 
words  to  our  present  poverty-stricken  stock,  I  am 
far   from   suggesting   that   we   should    seek   out 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH          23 

strange,  technical,  or  inflated  expressions,  which 
do  not  appear  in  ordinary  conversation.  The  very 
opposite  is  my  aim.  I  would  put  every  man  who 
is  now  employing  a  diction  merely  local  and  per- 
sonal in  command  of  the  approved  resources  of 
the  English  language.  Our  poverty  usually  comes 
through  provinciality,  through  accepting  without 
criticism  the  habits  of  our  special  set.  My  family, 
my  immediate  friends,  have  a  diction  of  their  own. 
Plenty  of  other  words,  recognized  as  sound,  are 
known  to  be  current  in  books,  and  to  be  employed 
by  modest  and  intelligent  speakers,  only  we  do 
not  use  them.  Our  set  has  never  said  "diction," 
or  " current, "  or  "scope,"  or  "scanty,"  or 
"hitherto,"  or  "convey,"  or  "lack."  Far  from 
unusual  as  these  words  are,  to  adopt  them  might 
seem  to  set  me  apart  from  those  whose  intellectual 
habits  I  share.  From  this  I  shrink.  I  do  not  like 
to  wear  clothes  suitable  enough  for  others,  but 
not  in  the  style  of  my  own  plain  circle.  Yet  if 
each  one  of  that  circle  does  the  same,  the  general 
shabbiness  is  increased.  The  talk  of  all  is  made 
narrow  enough  to  fit  the  thinnest  there.  What 
we  should  seek  is  to  contribute  to  each  of  the  little 
companies  with  which  our  life  is  bound  up  a  gently 
enlarging  influence,  such  impulses  as  will  not 
*  startle  or  create  detachment,  but  which  may  save 
from  humdrum,  routine,  and  dreary  usualness. 
We  cannot  be  really  kind  without  being  a  little 


24          SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH 

venturesome.  The  small  shocks  of  our  increasing 
vocabulary  will  in  all  probability  be  as  helpful  to 
our  friends  as  to  ourselves. 

Such,  then,  are  the  excellences  of  speech.  If  we 
would  cultivate  ourselves  in  the  use  of  English, 
we  must  make  our  daily  talk  accurate,  daring,  and 
full.  I  have  insisted  on  these  points  the  more  be- 
cause in  my  judgment  all  literary  power,  espe- 
cially that  of  busy  men,  is  rooted  in  sound  speech. 
But  though  the  roots  are  here,  the  growth  is  also 
elsewhere.  And  I  pass  to  my  later  precepts, 
which,  if  the  earlier  one  has  been  laid  well  to 
heart,  will  require  only  brief  discussion./^ 

Secondly,  "Welcome  every  opportunity  for  writ- 
ing. "  Important  as  I  have  shown  speech  to  be, 
there  is  much  that  it  cannot  do.  Seldom  can  it 
teach  structure.  Its  space  is  too  small.  Talking 
moves  in  sentences,  and  rarely  demands  a  para- 
graph. I  make  my  little  remark, — a  dozen  or  two 
words, — then  wait  for  my  friend  to  hand  me  back 
as  many  more.  This  gentle  exchange  continues 
by  the  hour;  but  either  of  us  would  feel  himself 
unmannerly  if  he  should  grasp  an  entire  five 
minutes  and  make  it  uninterruptedly  his.  That 
would  not  be  speaking,  but  rather  speech-making. 
The  brief  groupings  of  words  which  make  up  our 
talk  furnish  capital  practice  in  precision,  bold- 
ness, and  variety;  but  they  do  not  contain  room 
enough  for  exercising  our  constructive  faculties. 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH          25 

Considerable  length  is  necessary  if  we  are  to  learn 
how  to  set  forth  B  in  right  relation  to  A  on  the 
one  hand,  and  to  C  on  the  other ;  and  while  keep- 
ing each  a  distinct  part,  are  to  be  able  through 
their  smooth  progression  to  weld  all  the  parts 
together  into  a  compacted  whole.  Such  wholeness 
is  what  we  mean  by  literary  form.  Lacking  it, 
any  piece  of  writing  is  a  failure ;  because,  in  truth, 
it  is  not  a  piece,  but  pieces.  For  ease  of  reading, 
or  for  the  attainment  of  an  intended  effect,  unity 
is  essential — the  multitude  of  statements,  anec- 
dotes, quotations,  arguings,  gay  sportings,  and 
appeals,  all  "bending  one  way  their  gracious  in- 
fluence." And  this  dominant  unity  of  the  entire 
piece  obliges  unity  also  in  the  subordinate  parts. 
Not  enough  has  been  done  when  we  have  huddled 
together  a  lot  of  wandering  sentences,  and  penned 
them  in  a  paragraph,  or  even  when  we  have  linked 
them  together  by  the  frail  ties  of  "and,  and." 
A  sentence  must  be  compelled  to  say  a  single 
thing;  a  paragraph,  a  single  thing;  an  essay,  a 
single  thing.  Each  part  is  to  be  a  preliminary 
whole,  and  the  total  a  finished  whole.  But  the 
ability  to  construct  one  thing  out  of  many  does 
not  come  by  nature.  It  implies  fecundity,  re- 
straint, an  eye  for  effects,  the  forecast  of  finish 
while  we  are  still  working  in  the  rough,  obedience 
to  the  demands  of  development,  and  a  deaf  ear 
'to  whatever  calls  us  into  the  by-paths  of  caprice ; 


26  SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH 

in  short  it  implies  that  the  good  writer  is  to  be 
an  artist. 

Now  something  of  this  large  requirement  which 
composition  makes,  the  young  writer  instinctively 
feels,  and  he  is  terrified.  He  knows  how  ill-fitted 
he  is  to  direct  "toil  co-operant  to  an  end;"  and 
when  he  sits  down  to  the  desk  and  sees  the  white 
sheet  of  paper  before  him,  he  shivers.  Let  him 
know  that  the  shiver  is  a  suitable  part  of  the  per- 
formance. I  well  remember  the  pleasure  with 
which,  as  a  young  man,  I  heard  my  venerable  and 
practiced  professor  of  rhetoric  say  that  he  sup- 
posed there  was  no  work  known  to  man  more  diffi- 
cult than  writing.  Up  to  that  time  I  had  supposed 
its  severities  peculiar  to  myself.  It  cheered  me, 
and  gave  me  courage  to  try  again,  to  learn  that 
I  had  all  mankind  for  my  fellow-sufferers.  Where 
this  is  not  understood,  writing  is  avoided.  From 
such  avoidance  I  would  save  the  young  writer  by 
my  precept  to  seek  every  opportunity  to  write. 
For  most  of  us  this  is  a  new  way  of  confronting 
composition — treating  it  as  an  opportunity,  a 
chance,  and  not  as  a  burden  or  compulsion.  It 
saves  from  slavishness  and  takes  away  the  drudg- 
ery of  writing,  to  view  each  piece  of  it  as  a  pre- 
cious and  necessary  step  in  the  pathway  to  power. 
To  those  engaged  in  bread-winning  employments 
these  opportunities  will  be  few.  Spring  forward 
to  them,  then,  using  them  to  the  full.  Severe  they 


SELF-CULTIVATION   IN    ENGLISH          27 

will  be  because  so  few,  for  only  practice  breeds 
ease ;  but  on  that  very  account  let  no  one  of  them 
pass  with  merely  a  second-best  performance.  If 
a  letter  is  to  be  written  to  a  friend,  a  report  to  an 
employer,  a  communication  to  a  newspaper,  see 
that  it  has  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end.  The 
majority  of  writings  are  without  these  pleasing 
adornments.  Only  the  great  pieces  possess  them. 
Bear  this  in  mind,  and  win  the  way  to  artistic 
composition  by  noticing  what  should  be  said  first, 
what  second,  and  what  third. 

I  cannot  leave  this  subject,  however,  without 
congratulating  the  present  generation  on  its  ad- 
vantages over  mine.  Children  are  brought  up 
to-day,  in  happy  contrast  with  my  compeers,  to 
feel  that  the  pencil  is  no  instrument  of  torture, 
hardly  indeed  to  distinguish  it  from  the  tongue. 
About  the  time  they  leave  their  mother's  arms 
they  take  their  pen  in  hand.  On  paper  they  are 
encouraged  to  describe  their  interesting  birds, 
friends,  adventures.  Their  written  lessons  are 
almost  as  frequent  as  their  oral,  and  they  learn 
to  write  compositions  while  not  yet  quite  under- 
standing what  they  are  about.  Some  of  these 
fortunate  ones  will,  I  hope,  find  the  language  I 
have  sadly  used  about  the  difficulty  of  writing 
extravagant.  And  let  me  say,  too,  that  since  fre- 
quency has  more  to  do  with  ease  of  writing  than 
anything  else,  I  count  the  newspaper  men  lucky 


28  SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH 

because  they  are  writing  all  the  time,  and  I  do  not 
think  so  meanly  of  their  product  as  the  present 
popular  disparagement  would  seem  to  require. 
It  is  hasty  work  undoubtedly,  and  bears  the  marks 
of  haste.  But  in  my  judgment,  at  no  period  of 
the  English  language  has  there  been  so  high  an 
average  of  sensible,  vivacious,  and  informing 
sentences  written  as  appears  in  our  daily  press. 
With  both  good  and  evil  results,  the  distinction 
between 'book  literature  and  speech  literature  is 
breaking  down.  Everybody  is  writing,  apparently 
in  verse  and  prose;  and  if  the  higher  graces  of 
style  do  not  often  appear,  neither  on  the  other 
hand  do  the  ruder  awkwardness  and  obscurities. 
A  certain  straightforward  English  is  becoming 
established.  A  whole  nation  is  learning  the  use 
of  its  mother  tongue.  Under  such  circumstances 
it  is  doubly  necessary  that  any  one  who  is  con- 
scious of  feebleness  in  his  command  of  English 
should  promptly  and  earnestly  begin  the  cultiva- 
tion of  it. 

My  third  precept  shall  be, '  *  Bemember  the  other 
person."  I  have  been  urging  self-cultivation  in 
English  as  if  it  concerned  one  person  alone,  our- 
self.  But  every  utterance  really  concerns  two. 
Its  aim  is  social.  Its  object  is  communication; 
and  while  unquestionably  prompted  half-way  by 
the  desire  to  ease  our  mind  through  self-expres- 
sion, it  still  finds  its  only  justification  in  the  ad- 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH  29 

vantage  somebody  else  will  draw  from  what  is 
said.  Speaking  or  writing  is,  therefore,  every- 
where a  double-ended  process.  It  springs  from 
me,  it  penetrates  him ;  and  both  of  these  ends  need 
watching.  Is  what  I  say  precisely  what  I  mean? 
That  is  an  important  question.  Is  what  I  say  so 
shaped  that  it  can  readily  be  assimilated  by  him 
who  hears?  This  is  a  question  of  quite  as  great 
consequence,  and  much  more  likely  to  be  forgotten. 
We  are  so  full  of  ourselves  that  we  do  not  remem- 
ber the  other  person.  Helter-skelter  we  pour 
forth  our  unaimed  words  merely  for  our  personal 
relief,  heedless  whether  they  help  or  hinder  him 
whom  they  still  purport  to  address.  For  most  of 
us  are  grievously  lacking  in  imagination,  which  is 
the  ability  to  go  outside  ourselves  and  take  on 
the  conditions  of  another  mind.  Yet  this  is  what 
the  literary  artist  is  always  doing.  He  has  at  once 
the  ability  to  see  for  himself  and  the  ability  to  see 
himself  as  others  see  him.  He  can  lead  two  lives 
as  easily  as  one  life ;  or  rather,  he  has  trained  him- 
self to  consider  that  other  life  as  of  more  im- 
portance than  his,  and  to  reckon  his  comfort,  lik- 
ings, and  labors  as  quite  subordinated  to  the 
service  of  that  other.  All  serious  literary  work 
contains  within  it  this  readiness  to  bear  another's 
burden.  I  must  write  with  pains,  that  he  may 
read  with  ease.  I  must 

Find  out  men's  wants  and  wills, 
And  meet  them  there. 


30  SELF-CULTIVATION    IN   ENGLISH 

As  I  write,  I  must  unceasingly  study  what  is  the 
line  of  least  intellectual  resistance  along  which 
my  thought  may  enter  the  differently  constituted 
mind ;  and  to  that  line  I  must  subtly  adjust,  with- 
out enfeebling,  my  meaning.  Will  this  combina- 
tion of  words,  or  that,  make  the  meaning  clear? 
Will  this  order  of  presentation  facilitate  swiftness 
of  apprehension,  or  will  it  clog  the  movement? 
What  temperamental  perversities  in  me  must  be 
set  aside  in  order  to  render  my  reader 's  approach 
to  what  I  would  tell  him  pleasant?  What  tem- 
peramental perversities  in  him  must  be  accepted 
by  me  as  fixed  facts,  conditioning  all  I  say?  These 
are  the  questions  the  skilful  writer  is  always 
asking. 

And  these  questions — as  will  have  been  per- 
ceived already — are  moral  questions  no  less  than 
literary.  That  golden  rule  of  generous  service  by 
which  we  do  for  others  what  we  would  have  them 
do  for  us,  is  a  rule  of  writing  too.  Every  writer 
who  knows  his  trade  perceives  that  he  is  a  ser- 
vant, that  it  is  his  business  to  endure  hardship 
if  only  his  reader  may  win  freedom  from  toil,  that 
no  impediment  to  that  reader's  understanding  is 
too  slight  to  deserve  diligent  attention,  that  he 
has  consequently  no  right  to  let  a  single  sentence 
slip  from  him  unsocialized — I  mean,  a  sentence 
which  cannot  become  as  naturally  another's  pos- 
session as  his  own.  In  the  very  act  of  asserting 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN   ENGLISH          35 

to  do.  My  friend  seemed  puzzled  by  my  remark, 
but  after  a  moment's  pause  said,  "I  don't  think 
you  know  how  we  work.  I  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  character.  Now  that  he  is  created,  he 
will  act  as  he  will. ' ' 

And  such  docility  must  be  cultivated  by  every 
one  who  would  write  well,  such  strenuous  docility. 
Of  course  there  must  be  energy  in  plenty;  the 
imagination  which  I  described  in  my  third  section, 
the  passion  for  solid  form  as  in  my  second,  the 
disciplined  and  daring  powers  as  in  my  first ;  but 
all  these  must  be  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to 
move  where  the  matter  calls  and  to  acknowledge 
that  all  their  worth  is  to  be  drawn  from  it.  Be- 
ligion  is  only  enlarged  good  sense,  and*  the  words 
of  Jesus  apply  as  well  to  the  things  of  earth  as 
of  heaven.  I  do  not  know  where  we  could  find  a 
more  compendious  statement  of  what  is  most  im- 
portant for  one  to  learn  who  would  cultivate  him- 
self in  English  than  the  simple  saying  in  which 
Jesus  announces  the  source  of  his  power.  "I 
speak  not  mine  own  words,  but  the  words  of  him 
who  sent  me."  Whoever  can  do  that,  will  be  a 
noble  speaker  indeed. 

These,  then,  are  the  fundamental  precepts  which 
every  one  must  heed  who  would  command  our 
beautiful  English  language.  There  is,  of  course, 
a  fifth.  I  hardly  need  to  name  it;  for  it  always 
follows  after,  whatever  others  precede.  It  is  that 


36          SELF-CULTIVATION   IN   ENGLISH 

iwe  should  do  the  work,  and  not  think  about  it; 
I  do  it  day  after  day  and  not  grow  weary  in  bad 
I  doing.  Early  and  often  we  must  be  busy,  and  be 
satisfied  to  have  a  great  deal  of  labor  produce  but 
a  small  result.  I  am  told  that  early  in  life  John 
Morley,  wishing  to  engage  in  journalism,  wrote 
an  editorial  and  sent  it  to  a  paper  every  day  for 
nearly  a  year  before  he  succeeded  in  getting  one 
accepted.  We  all  know  what  a  power  he  became 
in  London  journalism.  I  will  not  vouch  for  the 
truth  of  this  story,  but  I  am  sure  an  ambitious 
author  is  wise  who  writes  a  weekly  essay  for  his 
stove.  Publication  is  of  little  consequence,  so  long 
as  one  is  getting  one's  self  hammered  into  shape. 
But  before  I  close  this  address,  let  me  acknowl- 
edge that  in  it  I  have  neglected  a  whole  class  of 
helpful  influences,  probably  quite  as  important  as 
any  I  have  discussed.  Purposely  I  have  passed 
them  by.  Because  I  wished  to  show  what  we  can 
do  for  ourselves,  I  have  everywhere  assumed  that 
our  cultivation  in  English  is  to  be  effected  by 
naked  volition  and  a  kind  of  dead  lift.  These  are 
mighty  agencies,  but  seldom  in  this  interlocked 
world  do  they  work  well  alone.  They  are  strong- 
est when  backed  by  social  suggestion  and  uncon- 
scious custom.  Ordinarily  the  good  speaker  is 
he  who  keeps  good  company,  but  increases  the 
helpful  influence  of  that  company  by  constant 
watchfulness  along  the  lines  I  have  marked  out. 


SELF-CULTIVATION    IN    ENGLISH          37 

So  supplemented,  my  teaching  is  true.  By  itself 
it  is  not  true.  It  needs  the  supplementation  of 
others.  Let  him  who  would  speak  or  write  well 
seek  out  good  speakers  and  writers.  Let  him  live 
in  their  society, — for  the  society  of  the  greatest 
writers  is  open  to  the  most  secluded — let  him  feel 
the  ease  of  their  excellence,  the  ingenuity,  grace, 
and  scope  of  their  diction,  and  he  will  soon  find 
in  himself  capacities  whose  development  may  be 
aided  by  the  precepts  I  have  given.  Most  of  us 
catch  better  than  we  learn.  We  take  up  uncon- 
sciously from  our  surroundings  what  we  cannot 
altogether  create.  All  this  should  be  remembered, 
and  we  should  keep  ourselves  exposed  to  the 
wholesome  words  of  our  fellow-men.  Yet  our  own 
exertions  will  not  on  that  account  be  rendered  less 
important.  We  may  largely  choose  the  influences 
to  which  we  submit;  we  may  exercise  a  selective 
attention  among  these  influences;  we  may  enjoy, 
oppose,  modify,  or  diligently  ingraft  what  is  con- 
veyed to  us, — and  for  doing  any  one  of  these 
things  rationally  we  must  be  guided  by  some 
clear  aim.  Such  aims,  altogether  essential  even 
if  subsidiary,  I  have  sought  to  supply;  and  I 
would  reiterate  that  he  who  holds  them  fast  may 
become  superior  to  linguistic  fortune  and  be  the 
wise  director  of  his  sluggish  and  obstinate  tongue. 
It  is  as  certain  as  anything  can  be  that  faithful 
endeavor  will  bring  expertness  in  the  use  of  Eng- 


38  SELF-CULTIVATION   IN    ENGLISH 

lish.  If  we  are  watchful  of  our  speech,  making 
our  words  continually  more  minutely  true,  free, 
and  resourceful ;  if  we  look  upon  our  occasions  of 
writing  as  opportunities  for  the  deliberate  work 
of  unified  construction ;  if  in  all  our  utterances  we 
think  of  him  who  hears  as  well  as  of  him  who 
speaks;  and  above  all,  if  we  fix  the  attention  of 
ourselves  and  our  hearers  on  the  matter  we  talk 
about  andjfso  let  ourselves  be  supported  by  our 
subject, — we  shall  make  a  daily  advance  not  only 
in  English  study,  but  in  personal  power,  in  gen- 
eral serviceableness,  and  in  consequent  delight. 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE 
IMPERFECT 

THE  following  Address  was  delivered  at  the  first  Com- 
mencement of  the  Woman's  College  of  Western  Reserve  Uni- 
versity and  printed  from  stenographer's  notes.  As  it  is  now 
to  assume  permanent  form,  it  has  been  revised  and  in  some 
parts  rewritten. 

G.  H.  P. 

A  FEW  years  ago  Matthew  Arnold,  the  eminent 
English  critic,  after  travelling  in  this  country  and 
revising  the  somewhat  unfavorable  opinion  of  us 
which  he  had  formed  earlier  and  at  a  distance, 
still  wrote  in  his  last  paper  on  Civilization  in  the 
United  States  that  America,  in  spite  of  its  excel- 
lences, is  an  uninteresting  land.  He  thought  our 
institutions  remarkable.  He  pointed  out  how 
close  a  fit  exists  between  them  and  the  character 
of  the  citizens,  a  fit  so  close  as  is  hardly  to  be 
found  in  other  countries.  He  saw  much  that  is 
of  promise  in  our  future.  But  after  all,  he  de- 
clares that  no  man  will  live  here  if  he  can  live 
elsewhere,  because  America  is  an  uninteresting 
land. 

This  remark  of  Mr.  Arnold's  is  one  which  we 
may  well  ponder.  As  I  consider  how  many  of  you 

39 


40    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

are  preparing  to  go  forth  from  college  and  estab- 
lish yourselves  in  this  country,  I  ask  myself 
whether  you  must  find  your  days  uninteresting. 
You  certainly  have  not  been  finding  them  uninter- 
esting here.  Where  were  college  days  ever  dull? 
It  is  a  beautiful  circumstance  that,  the  world  over, 
the  period  of  youthful  education  is  the  period  of 
romance.  No  such  thing  was  ever  heard  of  as  a 
college  student  who  did  not  enjoy  himself,  a  col- 
lege student  who  was  not  full  of  hope.  And  if  this 
has  been  the  case  with  us  prosaic  males  of  the 
past,  what  must  be  the  experience  of  your  own 
hopeful  sex?  I  am  sure  you  are  looking  forward 
with  eagerness  to  your  intended  work.  Is  it  to 
be  blighted  ?  Are  you  to  find  life  dull  ?  It  might 
seem  from  the  remark  of  Mr.  Arnold  that  it  would 
probably  be  so,  for  you  must  live  in  an  uninterest- 
ing land. 

When  this  remark  of  Mr.  Arnold's  was  first 
made,  a  multitude  of  voices  in  all  parts  of  our 
country  declared  that  Mr.  Arnold  did  not  know 
what  he  was  talking  about.  As  a  stupid  English- 
man he  had  come  here  and  had  failed  to  see  what 
our  land  contains.  In  reality,  every  corner  of  it 
is  stuffed  with  that  beauty  and  distinction  which 
he  denied.  For  that  was  the  offensive  feature  of 
his  statement :  he  had  said  in  substance,  the  chief 
sources  of  interest  are  beauty  and  distinction. 
America  is  not  beautiful.  Its  scenery,  its  people, 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    41 

its  past,  are  not  distinguished.  It  is  impossible, 
therefore,  for  an  intelligent  and  cultivated  man 
to  find  permanent  interests  there. 

The  ordinary  reply  to  these  unpleasant  sayings 
was,  "America  is  beautiful,  America  is  distin- 
guished." But  on  the  face  of  the  matter  this 
reply  might  well  be  distrusted.  Mr.  Arnold  is  not 
a  man  likely  to  make  such  a  mistake.  He  is  a 
trained  observer.  His  life  has  been  passed  in 
criticism,  and  criticism  of  an  extremely  delicate 
sort.  It  seems  to  me  it  must  be  rather  his  stand- 
ards than  his  facts  which  are  at  fault.  Many  of 
us  would  be  slow  to  believe  our  teacher  had  made 
an  error  in  observation ;  for  to  many  of  us  he  has 
been  a  very  great  teacher  indeed.  Through  him 
we  have  learned  the  charm  of  simplicity,  the  re- 
finement of  exactitude,  the  strength  of  finished 
form;  we  have  learned  calmness  in  trial  too,  the 
patience  of  duty,  ability  to  wait  when  in  doubt; 
in  short,  we  have  learned  dignity,  and  he  who 
teaches  us  dignity  is  not  a  man  lightly  to  be  for- 
gotten or  disparaged.  I  say,  therefore,  that  this 
answer  to  Mr.  Arnold,  that  he  was  in  error,  is 
one  which  on  its  face  might  prudently  be  dis- 
trusted. 

But  for  other  than  prudential  reasons  I  incline 
to  agree  with  Mr.  Arnold's  opinion.  Even  though 
I  were  not  naturally  disposed  to  credit  his  judg- 
ment, I  should  be  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  my 


42    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

own  observations  largely  coincide  with  his.  In 
Europe  I  believe  I  find  beauty  more  abundant 
than  in  America.  Certainly  the  distinguished 
objects,  the  distinguished  persons,  whom  I  go 
there  to  see,  are  more  numerous  than  those  I 
might  by  searching  find  here.  I  cannot  think  this 
portion  of  Mr.  Arnold's  statement  can  be  im- 
pugned. And  must  we,  then,  accept  his  conclusion 
and  agree  that  your  lives,  while  sheltered  in  this 
interesting  college,  are  themselves  interesting; 
but  that  when  you  go  forth,  the  romance  is  to  pass 
away?  I  do  not  believe  it,  because  I  question  the 
standard  which  Mr.  Arnold  employs.  He  tells  us 
that  the  sources  of  the  interesting  are  beauty  and 
distinction.  I  doubt  it.  However  much  delight 
and  refreshment  these  may  contribute  to  our  lives, 
I  do  not  believe  they  predominantly  constitute  our 
interests. 

Evidently  Mr.  Arnold  cannot  have  reached  his 
conclusion  through  induction,  for  the  commonest 
facts  of  experience  confute  him.  There  is  in  every 
community  a  certain  class  of  persons  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  discover  what  people  regard  as  inter- 
esting. These  are  the  newspaper  editors;  they 
are  paid  to  find  out  for  us  interesting  matters 
every  day.  There  is  nothing  they  like  better  than 
to  get  hold  of  something  interesting  which  has  not 
been  before  observed.  Are  they,  then,  searchers 
for  beauty  and  distinction?  I  should  say  not. 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    43 

Here  are  the  subjects  which  these  seekers  after 
interesting  things  discussed  in  my  morning  paper. 
There  is  an  account  of  disturbances  in  South 
America.  There  is  a  statement  about  Mr.  Elaine's 
health.  There  is  a  report  of  a  prize  fight.  There 
are  speculations  about  the  next  general  election. 
There  is  a  description  of  a  fashionable  wedding. 
These  things  interest  me,  and  I  suspect  they  in- 
terest the  majority  of  the  readers  of  that  paper; 
though  they  can  hardly  be  called  beautiful  or  dis- 
tinguished. Obviously,  therefore,  if  Mr.  Arnold 
had  inspected  the  actual  interests  of  to-day,  he 
would  have  been  obliged  to  recognize  some  other 
basis  for  them  than  beauty  and  distinction. 

Yet  I  suppose  all  will  feel  it  would  be  better  if 
the  trivial  matters  which  excite  our  interest  in 
the  morning  journal  were  of  a  more  beautiful, 
of  a  more  distinguished  sort.  Our  interests  would 
be  more  honorable  then.  These  things  interest 
merely  because  they  are  facts,  not  because  they 
are  beautiful.  A  fact  is  interesting  through  being 
a  fact,  and  this  commonest  and  most  basal  of  in- 
terests Mr.  Arnold  has  overlooked.  He  has  not 
perceived  that  life  itself  is  its  own  unceasing 
interest. 

Before  we  can  decide,  however,  whether  he  has 
overlooked  anything  more,  we  must  determine 
what  is  meant  by  beauty.  Let  us  analyze  the  mat- 
ter a  little.  Let  us  see  if  we  can  detect  why  the 


44    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

beautiful  and  the  distinguished  are  interesting, 
and  still  how  we  can  provide  a  place  for  the  other 
interests  which  are  omitted  in  his  statement.  If 
we  should  look  at  a  tree  and  ask  ourselves  why 
this  tree  is  more  beautiful  than  another,  we  should 
probably  find  we  had  thought  it  so  on  some  such 
grounds  as  these :  the  total  bunch  of  branches  and 
leaves,  that  exquisite  green  mass  sunning  itself, 
is  no  larger  than  can  well  be  supported  on  the 
brown  trunk.  It  is  large  enough ;  there  is  nothing 
lacking.  If  it  were  smaller,  the  office  of  the  trunk 
would  hardly  be  fulfilled.  If  larger,  the  trunk 
would  be  overpowered.  Those  branches  which 
extend  themselves  to  the  right  adequately  balance 
those  which  are  extended  to  the  left..  Scrutinizing 
it,  we  find  every  leaf  in  order,  each  one  ready  to 
aerate  its  little  sap  and  so  conduce  to  the  life  of 
the  whole.  There  is  no  decay,  no  broken  branch. 
Nothing  is  deficient,  but  at  the  same  time  there 
is  nothing  superfluous.  Each  part  ministers  to 
every  part.  In  all  parts  the  tree  is  proportionate 
— beautiful,  intrinsically  beautiful,  because  it  is 
unsuperfluous,  unlacking. 

And  when  we  turn  to  other  larger,  more  intri- 
cately beautiful  objects,  we  find  the  same  principle 
involved.  Fulness  of  relations  among  the  parts, 
perfection  of  organism,  absence  of  incongruity, 
constitute  the  beauty  of  the  object.  Were  you 
ever  in  Wiltshire  in  England,  and  did  you  visit 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    45 

the  splendid  seat  of  the  Earls  of  Pembroke,  Wil- 
ton House?  It  is  a  magnificent  pile,  designed  by 
Holbein  the  painter,  erected  before  Elizabeth  be- 
gan to  reign.  Its  green  lawns,  prepared  ages  ago, 
were  adapted  to  their  positions  originally  and 
perform  their  ancient  offices  to-day.  Time  has 
changed  its  gardens  only  by  making  them  more 
lovely  than  they  were  planned.  So  harmonious 
with  one  another  are  grounds  and  castle  that, 
looking  on  the  stately  dwelling,  one  imagines  that 
the  Creator  himself  must  have  had  it  in  mind  in 
his  design  of  the  spot.  And  when  you  enter,  all 
is  equally  congruous.  Around  the  central  court 
runs  the  cloistered  statuary  gallery,  out  of  which 
open  the  several  halls.  Passing  through  these, 
you  notice  the  portraits  not  only  of  past  mem- 
bers of  the  family — men  who  have  been  among 
the  most  distinguished  of  England's  worthies — 
but  also  portraits  of  the  eminent  friends  of  the 
Pembrokes,  painted  by  notable  artists  who  were 
often  themselves  also  friends  of  the  family.  In 
the  library  is  shown  Sidney's  Arcadia,  written  in 
this  very  garden,  with  a  lock  of  Elizabeth's  hair 
enclosed.  In  the  chief  hall  a  play  of  Shakespeare 's 
is  reported  to  have  been  brought  out  for  the  first 
time.  Half  a  dozen  names  that  shine  in  literature 
lend  intellectual  glory  to  the  place.  But  as  you 
walk  from  room  to  room,  amazed  at  the  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  and  proud  tradition,  you  perceive 


46    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

how  each  casual  object  makes  its  separate  con- 
tribution to  the  general  impression  of  stateliness. 
A  glance  from  a  window  discloses  an  enchanting 
view :  in  the  distance,  past  the  cedars,  the  spire  of 
Salisbury  Cathedral,  one  of  the  most  peaceful  and 
aspiring  in  England.  All  parts — scenery,  build- 
ings, rich  possessions,  historic  heritages — minis- 
ter to  parts.  Eomantic  imagination  is  stirred. 
It  is  beautiful,  beautiful  beyond  anything  America 
can  show. 

And  if  we  turn  to  that  region  where  beauty  is 
most  subtly  embodied,  if  we  turn  to  human  char- 
acter, we  find  the  conditions  not  dissimilar.  The 
character  which  impresses  us  most  is  that  which 
has  fully  organized  its  powers,  so  that  every 
ability  finds  its  appropriate  place  without  prom- 
inence; one  with  no  false  humility  and  without 
self-assertion;  a  character  which  cannot  be  over- 
thrown by  petty  circumstance,  but,  steadfast  in 
itself,  no  part  lacking,  no  part  superfluous,  easily 
lets  its  ample  functions  assist  one  another  in  all 
that  they  are  summoned  to  perform.  When  we 
-behold  a  man  like  this,  we  say,  "This  is  what  I 
would  be.  Here  is  the  goal  toward  which  I  would 
tend.  This  man,  like  Wilton  House,  like  the  beau- 
tiful tree,  is  a  finished  thing/'  It  is  true  when 
we  turn  our  attention  back  and  once  more  criti- 
cise, we  see  that  it  is  not  so.  No  human  character 
can  be  finished.  It  is  its  glory  that  it  cannot  be. 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    47 

It  must  ever  press  forward;  each  step  reached  is 
but  the  vantage-ground  for  a  further  step.  There 
is  no  completeness  in  human  character — in  human 
character  save  one. 

And  must  we,  then,  consider  human  character 
uninteresting?  According  to  Mr.  Arnold's  stand- 
ard perhaps  we  ought  to  do  so.  But  through  this 
very  case  the  narrowness  of  that  standard  becomes 
apparent.  Mr.  Arnold  rightly  perceives  that 
beauty  is  one  of  our  higher  interests.  It  certainly 
is  not  our  only  or  our  highest,  because  in  that 
which  is  most  profoundly  interesting,  human 
life,  the  completeness  of  parts  which  constitutes 
beauty  is  never  reached.  There  must  obviously 
be  another  and  a  higher  source  of  interest,  one 
too  exalted  to  be  found  where  awhile  ago  I 
sketched  it,  in  the  mere  occurrence  of  a  fact.  We 
cannot  say  that  all  events,  simply  because  they 
occur,  are  alike  interesting.  To  find  in  them  an 
intelligent  interest,  we  must  rate  their  wrorth.  I 
agree,  accordingly,  with  Mr.  Arnold  in  thinking 
that  it  is  the  passion  for  perfection,  the  assess- 
ment of  worths,  which  is  at  the  root  of  all  en- 
during interests.  But  I  believe  that  in  the  history 
of  the  world  this  passion  for  perfection,  this 
deepest  root  of  human  interests,  has  presented 
itself  in  two  forms.  The  Greek  conceived  it  in 
one  way,  the  Christian  has  conceived  it  in  another. 

It  was  the  office  of  that  astonishing  people,  the 


48    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPEKFECT 

Greeks,  to  teach  us  to  honor  completeness,  the 
majesty  of  the  ronnded  whole.  We  see  this  in 
every  department  of  their  marvellous  life.  When- 
ever we  look  at  a  Greek  statue,  it  seems  impos- 
sible that  it  should  be  otherwise  without  loss ;  we 
cannot  imagine  any  portion  changed;  the  thing 
has  reached  its  completeness.  Before  it  we  can 
only  bow  and  feel  at  rest.  Just  so  it  is  when  we 
examine  Greek  architecture.  There,  too,  we  find 
the  same  ordered  proportion,  the  same  adjust- 
ment of  part  to  part.  And  if  we  turn  to  Greek 
literature,  the  stately  symmetry  is  no  less  re- 
markable. What  page  of  Sophocles  could  be 
stricken  out?  What  page — what  sentence?  Just 
enough,  not  more  than  enough !  The  thought  has 
grown,  has  asserted  its  entirety;  and  when  that 
entirety  has  been  reached,  it  has  stopped,  de- 
lighted with  its  own  perfection.  A  splendid  ideal, 
an  ideal  which  never  can  fail,  I  am  sure,  to  inter- 
est man  so  long  as  he  remains  intelligent! 

And  yet  this  beautiful  Greek  work  shows  only 
one  aspect  of  the  world.  It  omitted  one  little  fact, 
it  omitted  formative  life.  Joy  in  birth,  delight 
in  beginnings,  interest  in  origins, — these  things 
did  not  belong  to  the  Greek;  they  came  in  with 
Christianity.  It  is  Jesus  Christ  who  turns  our 
attention  toward  growth,  and  so  teaches  us  to 
delight  in  the  imperfect  rather  than  in  the  perfect. 
It  is  he  who,  wishing  to  give  to  his  disciples  a 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    49 

model  of  what  they  should  be,  does  not  select  the 
completed  man,  but  takes  the  little  child  and  sets 
him  before  them  and  to  the  supercilious  says, 
"Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little 
ones."  He  teaches  us  to  reverence  the  beginning 
of  things.  And  at  first  thought  it  might  well  seem 
that  this  reverence  for  the  imperfect  was  a  retro- 
gression. What!  is  not  a  consummate  man  more 
admirable  than  a  child?  "No,"  Jesus  answered; 
and  because  he  answered  so,  pity  was  born.  Be- 
fore the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ,  I  think  we  may 
say  that  the  sick,  the  afflicted,  the  child, — shall  I 
not  >say  the  woman? — were  but  slightly  under- 
stood. It  is  because  God  has  come  down  from 
heaven,  manifesting  even  himself  in  forms  of 
imperfection,  it  is  on  this  account  that  our  intel- 
lectual horizon  has  been  enlarged.  We  may  now 
delight  in  the  lowly,  we  may  stoop  and  gather 
imperfect  things,  and  rejoice  in  them, — rejoice 
beyond  the  old  Greek  rejoicing. 

Yet  it  is  easy  to  mistake  the  nature  of  this 
change  of  standard,  and  in  doing  so  to  run  into 
grave  moral  danger.  If  we  content  ourselves  with 
the  imperfect  rather  than  with  the  perfect,  we  are 
barbarians.  We  are  not  Christians  nor  are  we 
Greeks,  we  are  barbarians.  But  that  is  not  the 
spirit  of  Jesus.  He  teaches  us  to  catch  the  future 
in  the  instant,  to  see  the  infinite  in  the  finite,  to 
watch  the  growth  of  the  perfect  out  of  the  im- 


50    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

perfect.  And  he  teaches  us  that  this  delight  in 
progress,  in  growth,  in  aspiration,  in  completing, 
may  rightly  be  greater  than  our  exultation  in 
completeness.  In  his  view  the  joy  of  perfecting 
is  beyond  the  joy  of  perfection. 

Now  I  want  to  be  sure  that  you  young  students, 
who  are  preparing  yourselves  here  for  larger  life 
and  are  soon  to  emerge  into  the  perplexing  world, 
go  forth  with  clear  and  Christian  purpose.  For 
though  what  I  have  been  discussing  may  appear 
dry  and  abstract,  it  is  an  extremely  practical  mat- 
ter. Consider  a  moment  in  which  direction  you 
are  to  seek  the  interests  of  your  life.  Will  you 
demand  that  the  things  about  you  shall  already 
possess  their  perfection?  Will  you  ask  from  life 
that  it  be  completed,  finished,  beautiful?  If  so, 
you  are  doomed  to  dreary  days.  Or  are  you  to 
get  your  intellectual  eyes  open,  see  beauty  in  the 
making,  and  come  to  rejoice  in  it  there  rather  than 
after  it  is  made?  That  is  the  question  I  wish  to 
present  to-day;  and  I  shall  ask  you  to  examine 
several  provinces  of  life,  and  see  how  different 
they  appear  when  surveyed  from  one  point  of  view 
or  from  the  other. 

Undoubtedly  all  of  you  on  leaving  here  will  go 
into  some  home,  either  the  home  of  your  parents 
or — less  fortunate — some  stranger's  home.  And 
when  you  come  there,  I  think  I  can  foretell  one 
thing:  it  will  be  a  tolerably  imperfect  place  in 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    51 

which  you  find  yourself.  You  will  notice  a  great 
many  points  in  which  it  is  improvable ;  that  is  to 
say,  a  great  many  respects  in  which  you  might 
properly  wish  it  otherwise.  It  will  seem  to  you, 
I  dare  say,  a  little  plain,  a  little  commonplace, 
compared  with  your  beautiful  college  and  the  col- 
lege life  here.  I  doubt  whether  you  will  find  all 
the  members  of  your  family — dear  though  they 
may  be — so  wise,  so  gentle-mannered,  so  able  to 
contribute  to  your  intellectual  life  as  are  your 
companions  here.  Will  you  feel  then,  "Ah!  home 
is  a  dull  place,  I  wish  I  were  back  in  college  again ! 
I  think  I  was  made  for  college  life.  Possibly 
enough  I  was  made  for  a  wealthy  life.  I  am  sure 
I  was  made  for  a  comfortable  life.  But  I  do  not 
find  these  things  here.  I  will  sit  and  wish  I  had 
them.  Of  course  I  ought  not  to  enjoy  a  home  that 
is  short  of  perfection ;  and  I  recognize  that  this  is 
a  good  way  from  that."  Is  this  to  be  your  atti- 
tude? Or  are  you  going  to  say,  "How  interesting 
this  home!  What  a  brave  struggle  the  dear 
people  are  making  with  the  resources  at  their 
command!  What  kindness  is  shown  by  my  tired 
mother ;  how  swift  she  is  in  finding  out  the  many 
small  wants  of  the  household!  How  diligent  my 
father!  Should  I,  if  I  had  had  only  their  nar- 
row opportunities,  be  so  intelligent,  so  kind,  so 
self-sacrificing  as  they?  What  can  I  do  to  show 
them  my  gratitude?  What  can  I  contribute  to- 


52    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPEEFECT 

ward  the  furtherance,  the  enlargement,  the  per- 
fecting, of  this  home?"  That  is  the  wise  course. 
Enter  this  home  not  merely  as  a  matter  of  loving 
duty,  but  find  in  it  also  your  own  strong  interests, 
and  learn  to  say,  "This  home  is  not  a  perfect 
home,  happily  not  a  perfect  home.  I  have  some- 
thing here  to  do.  It  is  far  more  interesting  than 
if  it  were  already  complete. " 

And  again,  you  will  not  always  live  in  a  place 
so  attractive  as  Cleveland.  There  are  cities  which 
have  not  your  beautiful  lake,  your  distant  views, 
your  charming  houses  excellently  shaded  with 
trees.  These  things  are  exceptional,  and  cannot 
always  be  yours.  You  may  be  obliged  to  live  in 
an  American  town  which  appears  to  you  highly 
unfinished,  a  town  which  constantly  suggests  that 
much  still  remains  to  be  done.  And  then  are  you 
going  to  say,  "This  place  is  not  beautiful,  and  I 
of  course  am  a  lover  of  the  beautiful.  How  could 
one  so  superior  as  I  rest  in  such  surroundings? 
I  could  not  respect  myself  were  I  not  discon- 
tented. "  Is  that  to  be  your  attitude?  It  is,  I  am 
sorry  to  think,  the  attitude  of  many  who  go  from 
our  colleges.  They  have  been  taught  to  reverence 
perfection,  to  honor  excellence;  and  instead  of 
making  it  their  work  to  carry  this  excellence  forth, 
and  to  be  interested  in  spreading  it  far  and  wide 
in  the  world,  they  sit  down  and  mourn  that  it  has 
not  yet  come.  How  dull  the  world  would  be  had 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    53 

it  come!  Perfection,  beauty?  It  constitutes  a 
resting-place  for  us;  it  does  not  constitute  our 
working-place. 

I  maintain,  therefore,  in  regard  to  our  land  as 
a  whole  that  there  is  no  other  so  interesting  on 
the  face  of  the  earth ;  and  I  am  led  to  this  convic- 
tion by  the  very  reasoning  which  brought  Mr. 
Arnold  to  a  contrary  opinion.  I  accept  his  judg- 
ment of  the  beauty  of  America.  His  premise  is 
correct,  but  it  should  have  conducted  him  to  the 
opposite  conclusion.  In  America  we  still  are  in 
the  making.  We  are  not  yet  beautiful  and  dis- 
tinguished; and  that  is  why  America,  beyond 
every  other  country,  awakens  a  noble  interest. 
The  beauty  which  is  in  the  old  lands,  and  which 
refreshes  for  a  season,  is  after  all  a  species  of 
death.  Those  who  dwell  among  such  scenes  are 
appeased,  they  are  not  quickened.  Let  them  keep 
their  past ;  we  have  our  future.  We  may  do  much. 
What  they  can  do  is  largely  at  an  end. 

In  literature  also  I  wish  to  bring  these  distinc- 
tions before  you,  these  differences  of  standard; 
and  perhaps  I  cannot  accomplish  this  better  than 
by  exhibiting  them  as  they  are  presented  in  a  few 
verses  from  the  poet  of  the  imperfect.  I  suppose 
if  we  try  to  mark  out  with  precision  the  work  of 
Mr.  Browning, — I  mean  not  to  mark  it  out  as  the 
Browning  societies  do,  but  to  mark  it  out  with 
precision, — we  might  say  that  its  distinctive  fea- 


54    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

ture  is  that  he  has  guided  himself  by  the  principle 
on  which  I  have  insisted :  he  has  sought  for  beauty 
where  there  is  seeming  chaos;  he  has  loved 
growth,  has  prized  progress,  has  noted  the  ad- 
vance of  the  spiritual,  the  pressing  on  of  the  finite 
soul  through  hindrance  to  its  junction  with  the 
infinite.  This  it  is  which  has  inspired  his  some- 
what crabbed  verses,  and  has  made  men  willing 
to  undergo  the  labor  of  reading  them,  that  they 
too  may  partake  of  his  insight.  In  one  of  his 
poems — one  which  seems  to  me  to  contain  some 
of  his  sublimest  as  well  as  some  of  his  most  com- 
monplace lines,  the  poem  on  Old  Pictures  in 
Florence, — he  discriminates  between  Greek  and 
Christian  art  in  much  the  same  way  I  have  done. 
In  Greek  Art,  Mr.  Browning  says : — 

You  saw  yourself  as  you  wished  you  were, 

As  you  might  have  been,  as  you  cannot  be; 
Earth  here,  rebuked  by  Olympus  there ; 

And  grew  content  in  your  poor  degree 
With  your  little  power,  by  those  statues'  godhead, 

And  your  little  scope,  by  their  eyes'  full  sway, 
And  your  little  grace,  by  their  grace  embodied, 

And  your  little  date,  by  their  forms  that  stay. 

You  would  fain  be  kinglier,  say,  than  I  am  ? 

Even  so,  you  will  not  sit  like  Theseus. 
You  would  prove  a  model  ?    The  son  of  Priam 

Has  yet  the  advantage  in  arms'  and  knees'  use. 
You're  wroth  —  can  you  slay  your  snake  like  Apollo? 

You're  grieved  —  still  Niobe's  the  grander! 
You  live  —  there's  the  Racers'  frieze  to  follow: 

You  die  —  there's  the  dying  Alexander. 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    55 

So,  testing  your  weakness  by  their  strength, 
Your  meagre  charms  by  their  rounded  beauty, 

Measured  by  Art  in  your  breadth  and  length 
You  learned  —  to  submit  is  a  mortal 's  duty. 

Growth  came  when,  looking  your  last  on  them  all, 

You  turned  your  eyes  inwardly  one  fine  day 
And  cried  with  a  start — What  if  we  so  small 

Be  greater  and  grander  the  while  than  they  ! 
Are  they  perfect  of  lineament,  perfect  of  stature  ? 

In  both,  of  such  lower  types  are  we 
Precisely  because  of  our  wider  nature  ; 

For  time,  theirs — ours,  for  eternity. 

To-day's  brief  passion  limits  their  range  ; 

It  seethes  with  the  morrow  for  us  and  more. 
They  are  perfect  —  how  else  1  they  shall  never  change  : 

We  are  faulty  —  why  not  ?  we  have  time  in  store. 
The  Artificer 's  hand  is  not  arrested 

With  us  ;  we  are  rough-hewn,  no-wise  polished  : 
They  stand  for  our  copy,  and  once  invested 

With  all  they  can  teach,  we  shall  see  them  abolished. 

You  will  notice  that  in  this  subtle  study  Mr. 
Browning  points  out  how  through  contact  with 
perfection  there  may  come  content  with  our  pres- 
ent lot.  This  I  call  the  danger  of  perfection,  our 
possible  belittlement  through  beauty.  For  in  the 
lives  of  us  all  there  should  be  a  divine  discontent ; 
not  devilish  discontent,  but  divine  discontent, — 
a  consciousness  that  life  may  be  larger  than  we 
have  yet  attained,  that  we  are  to  press  beyond 
what  we  have  reached,  that  joy  lies  in  the  future, 
in  that  which  has  not  been  found,  rather  than  in 


56    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

the  realized  present.  And  it  seems  to  me  if  ever 
a  people  were  called  on  to  understand  this  glory 
of  the  imperfect,  it  is  we  of  America,  it  is  you  of 
the  Middle  West;  it  is  especially  you  who  are 
undertaking  here  the  experiment  of  a  woman's 
college.  You  are  at  the  beginning,  and  that  fact 
should  lend  an  interest  to  your  work  which  can- 
not so  readily  be  realized  in  our  older  institutions. 
As  you  look  eastward  upon  my  own  huge  uni- 
versity, Harvard  University,  it  probably  appears 
to  you  singularly  beautiful,  reverend  in  its  age, 
magnificent  in  its  endowments,  equable  in  its  work- 
ing; perhaps  you  contemplate  it  as  nearing  per- 
fection, and  contrast  your  incipient  college  with 
it  as  hardly  deserving  of  the  name.  You  are  en- 
tirely mistaken.  Harvard  University,  to  its  glory 
be  it  said,  is  enormously  unfinished ;  it  is  a  great 
way  from  perfect ;  it  is  full  of  blemishes.  We  are 
tinkering  at  it  all  the  time ;  and  if  it  were  not  so, 
I  for  one  should  decline  to  be  connected  with  it. 
Its  interest  for  me  would  cease.  You  are  to  start 
free  from  some  trammels  that  we  feel.  Because 
we  have  so  large  a  past  laid  upon  us  we  have  not 
some  freedoms  of  growth,  some  opportunities  of 
enlargement,  which  you  possess.  Accordingly,  in 
your  very  experiment  here  you  have  a  superb 
illustration  of  the  principle  I  am  trying  to  ex- 
plain. This  young  and  imperfect  college  should 
interest  you  who  are  members  of  it;  it  should 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    57 

interest  this  intelligent  city.  Wise  patrons  should 
find  here  a  germ  capable  of  such  broad  and  inter- 
esting growth  as  may  well  call  out  their  heartiest 
enthusiasm. 

If  then  the  modes  of  accepting  the  passion  for 
perfection  are  so  divergent  as  I  have  indicated, 
is  it  possible  to  suggest  methods  by  which  we  may 
discipline  ourselves  in  the  nobler  way  of  seeking 
the  interests  of  life? — I  mean  by  taking  part  with 
things  in  their  beginnings,  learning  to  reverence 
them  there,  and  so  attaining  an  interest  which  will 
continually  be  supported  and  carried  forward. 
You  may  look  with  some  anxiety  upon  the  doc- 
trine which  I  have  laid  down.  You  may  say,  ' '  But 
beauty  is  seductive;  beauty  allures  me.  I  know 
that  the  imperfect  in  its  struggle  toward  perfec- 
tion is  the  nobler  matter.  I  know  that  America 
is,  for  him  who  can  see  all  things,  a  more  interest- 
ing land  than  Spain.  Yes,  I  know  this,  but  I  find 
it  hard  to  feel  it.  My  strong  temptation  is  to  lie 
and  dream  in  romance,  in  ideal  perfection.  By 
what  means  may  I  discipline  myself  out  of  this 
degraded  habit  and  bring  myself  into  the  higher 
life,  so  that  I  shall  always  be  interested  in  prog- 
ress, in  the  future  rather  than  in  the  past,  in  the 
on-going  rather  than  in  the  completed  life?"  I 
cannot  give  an  exact  and  final  receipt  for  this 
better  mind.  A  persistently  studied  experience 
must  be  the  teacher.  To-day  you  may  understand 


58    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

what  I  say,  you  may  resolve  to  live  according  to 
the  methods  I  approve.  But  you  may  be  sure  that 
to-morrow  you  will  need  to  learn  it  all  over  again. 
And  yet  I  think  I  can  mention  several  lines  of  dis- 
cipline, as  I  may  call  them.  I  can  direct  your 
attention  to  certain  modes  by  which  you  may  in- 
struct yourselves  how  to  take  an  interest  in  the 
imperfect  thing,  and  still  keep  that  interest  an 
honorable  one.  / 

In  my  judgment,  then,  your  first  care  should  be  l 
to  learn  to  observe.  A  simple  matter — one,  I  dare 
say,  which  it  will  seem  to  you  difficult  to  avoid. 
You  have  a  pair  of  eyes;  how  can  you  fail  to 
observe?  Ah!  but  eyes  can  only  look,  and  that 
is  not  observing.  We  must  not  rest  in  looking, 
but  must  penetrate  into  things,  if  we  would  find 
out  what  is  there.  And  to  find  this  out  is  worth 
while,  for  everything  when  observed  is  of  im- 
mense interest.  There  is  no  object  so  remote  from 
human  life  that  when  we  come  to  study  it  we  may 
not  detect  within  its  narrow  compass  illuminating 
and  therefore  interesting  matter.  But  it  makes  a 
great  difference  whether  we  do  thus  really  ob- 
serve, whether  we  hold  attention  to  the  thing  in 
hand,  and  see  what  it  contains.  Once,  after  puz- 
zling long  over  the  charm  of  Homer,  I  applied  to 
a  learned  friend  and  said  to  him,  "Can  you  tell 
me  why  Homer  is  so  interesting?  Why  can't  you 
and  I  write  as  he  wrote?  Why  is  it  that  his  art 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    59 

is  lost,  and  that  to-day  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
awaken  an  interest  at  all  comparable  to  his!" 
"Well,"  said  my  friend,  "I  have  often  meditated 
on  that,  but  it  seems  to  come  to  about  this :  Homer 
looked  long  at  a  thing.  Why,"  said  he,  "do  you 
know  that  if  you  should  hold  up  your  thumb  and 
look  at  it  long  enough,  you  would  find  it  im- 
mensely interesting?"  Homer  looks  a  great 
while  at  his  thumb.  He  sees  precisely  the  thing 
he  is  dealing  with.  He  does  not  confuse  it  with 
anything  else.  It  is  sharp  to  him;  and  because 
it  is  sharp  to  him  it  stands  out  sharply  for  us  over 
thousands  of  years.  Have  you  acquired  this  art, 
or  do  you  hastily  glance  at  insignificant  objects? 
Do  you  see  the  thing  exactly  as  it  is?  Do  you 
strip  away  from  it  your  own  likings  and  dislik- 
ings,  your  own  previous  notions  of  what  it  ought 
to  be?  Do  you  come  face  to  face  with  things? 
If  you  do,  the  hardest  situation  in  life  may  well 
be  to  you  a  delight.  For  you  will  not  regard  hard- 
ships, but  only  opportunities.  Possibly  you  may 
even  feel,  "Yes,  here  are  just  the  difficulties  I  like 
to  explore.  How  can  one  be  interested  in  easy 
things?  The  hard  things  of  life  are  the  ones  for 
which  we  ought  to  give  thanks."  So  we  may  feel 
if  we  have  made  the  cool  and  hardy  temper  of  the 
observer  our  own,  if  we  have  learned  to  put  our- 
selves into  a  situation  and  to  understand  it  on  all 
sides.  Why,  the  things  on  which  we  have  thus 


60    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

concentrated  attention  become  our  permanent 
interests.  For  example,  unluckily  when  I  was 
trained  I  was  not  disciplined  in  botany.  I  cannot, 
therefore,  now  observe  the  rose.  Some  of  you 
can,  for  you  have  been  studying  botany  here.  I 
have  to  look  stupidly  on  the  total  beauty  of  this 
lovely  object;  I  can  see  it  only  as  a  whole,  while 
you,  fine  observer,  who  have  trained  your  powers 
to  pierce  it,  can  comprehend  its  very  structure 
and  see  how  marvellously  the  blooming  thing  is  put 
together.  My  eyes  were  dulled  to  that  long  ago ; 
I  cannot  observe  it.  Beware,  do  not  let  your- 
selves grow  dull.  Observe,  observe,  observe  in 
every  direction!  Keep  your  eyes  open.  Go  for- 
ward, understanding  that  the  world  was  made  for 
your  knowledge,  that  you  have  the  right  to  enter 
into  and  possess  it. 

And  then  besides,  you  need  to  train  yourselves 
to  sympathize  with  that  which  lies  beyond  you. 
It  is  easy  to  sympathize  with  that  which  lies 
within  you.  Many  persons  go  through  life  sym- 
pathizing with  themselves  all  the  while.  What 
unhappy  persons!  How  unfit  for  anything  im- 
portant !  They  are  full  of  themselves  and  answer 
their  own  motion,  while  there  beyond  them  lies 
all  the  wealthy  world  in  which  they  might  be 
sharers.  For  sympathy  is  feeling  with ;  it  is  the 
identification  of  ourself  with  that  which  at  pres- 
ent is  not  ourself.  It  is  going  forth  and  joining 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    61 

that  which  we  behold,  not  standing  aloof  and 
merely  observing,  as  I  said  at  first.  When  we 
observe,  the  object  we  observe  is  alien  to  us ;  when 
we  sympathize,  we  identify  ourselves  with  it. 
You  may  go  into  a  home  and  observe,  and  you 
will  make  every  person  in  that  home  wretched. 
But  go  into  a  home  and  sympathize,  find  out  what 
lies  beyond  you  there,  see  how  differently  those 
persons  are  thinking  and  feeling  from  the  ways 
in  which  you  are  accustomed  to  think  and  feel; 
yet  notice  how  imperfect  you  are  in  yourself,  and 
how  important  it  is  that  persons  should  be  fash- 
ioned thus  different  from  you  if  even  your  own 
completion  is  to  come;  then,  I  say,  you  will  find 
yourself  becoming  large  in  your  own  being,  and 
a  large  benefactor  of  others. 

Do  not  stunt  sympathy,  then.  Do  not  allow 
walls  to  rise  up  and  hem  it  in.  Never  say  to  your- 
self, "This  is  my  way;  I  don't  do  so  and  so.  I 
know  only  this  and  that;  I  don't  want  to  know 
anything  else.  You  other  people  may  have  that 
habit,  but  these  are  my  habits,  and  I  always  do 
thus  and  thus."  Do  not  say  that.  Nothing  is 
more  immoral  than  moral  psychology.  You  should 
have  no  interest  in  yourself  as  you  stand;  be- 
cause a  larger  selfhood  lies  beyond  you,  and  you 
should  be  going  forth  and  claiming  your  heritage 
there.  Do  not,  then,  stand  apart  from  the  move- 
ments of  the  country, — the  political,  charitable, 


62    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

religious,  scientific,  literary  movements  —  how- 
ever distastefully  they  may  strike  you.  Identify 
yourself  with  them,  sympathize  with  them.  They 
all  have  a  noble  side;  seek  it  out  and  claim  it  as 
your  own.  Throw  yourself  into  all  life  and  make 
it  nobly  yours. 

But  I  am  afraid  it  would  be  impossible  for  you 
thus  to  observe,  thus  to  sympathize,  unless  you 
bring  within  your  imperfect  self  just  grounds  of 
self-respect.  You  must  contribute  to  things  if 
you  would  draw  from  things.  You  must  already 
have  acquired  some  sort  of  excellence  in  order 
to  detect  larger  excellence  elsewhere.  You  should 
therefore  have  made  yourself  the  master  of  some- 
thing which  you  can  do,  and  do  on  the  whole  bet- 
ter than  anybody  else.  That  is  the  moral  aspect 
of  competition,  that  one  person  can  do  a  certain 
thing  best  and  so  it  is  given  him  to  do.  Some  of 
you  who  are  going  out  into  the  world  before  long 
will,  I  fear,  be  astonished  to  find  that  the  world 
is  already  full.  It  has  no  place  for  you ;  it  never 
anticipated  your  coming  and  it  has  reserved  for 
you  no  corner.  Your  only  means  of  gaining  a 
corner  will  be  by  doing  something  better  than  the 
people  who  are  already  there.  Then  they  will 
make  you  a  place.  And  that  is  what  you  should 
be  considering  here.  You  should  be  training 
yourself  to  do  something  well,  it  really  does  not 
matter  much  what.  Can  you  make  dresses  well? 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    63 

Can  you  cook  a  good  loaf  of  bread?  Can  you 
write  a  poem  or  run  a  typewriter?  Can  you  do 
anything  well?  Are  you  a  master  somewhere? 
If  you  are,  the  world  will  have  a  place  for  you; 
End  more  than  that,  you  will  have  within  you  just 
grounds  for  self-respect. 

To  sum  up  what  I  have  been  saying  through- 
out this  address  merely  amounts  to  this :  that  the 
imperfect  thing — the  one  thing  of  genuine  interest 
in  all  the  world — gets  its  right  to  be  respected 
only  through  its  connection  with  the  totality  of 
things.  Do  not,  then,  when  you  leave  college  say 
to  yourself,  "I  know  Greek.  That  is  a  splendid 
thing  to  know.  These  people  whom  I  am  meeting 
do  not  know  it  and  are  obviously  of  a  lower 
grade  than  I."  That  will  not  be  self-respectful, 
because  it  shows  that  you  have  not  understood 
your  proper  place.  You  should  respect  yourself 
as  a  part  of  all,  and  not  as  of  independent  worth. 
To  call  this  wide  world  our  own  larger  self  is  not 
too  extravagant  an  expression.  But  if  we  are  to 
count  it  so,  then  we  must  count  the  particular 
thing  which  we  are  capable  of  doing  as  merely 
our  special  contribution  to  the  great  self.  And 
we  must  understand  that  many  are  making  similar 
contributions.  What  I  want  you  to  feel,  therefore, 
is  the  profound  conception  of  mutual  helpfulness 
and  resulting  individual  dignity  which  St.  Paul 
has  set  forth,  according  to  which  each  of  us  is 


64    THE  GLORY*  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

performing  a  special  function  in  the  common  life, 
and  that  life  of  all  is  recognized  as  the  divine  life, 
the  manifestation  of  the  life  of  the  Father.  When 
you  have  come  to  that  point,  when  you  have  seen 
in  the  imperfect  a  portion,  an  aspect,  of  the  totals 
perfect,  divine  life,  then  I  am  not  afraid  life  will 
be  uninteresting.  Indeed,  I  would  say  to  every 
one  who  goes  from  this  college,  you  can  count 
with  confidence  on  a  life  which  shall  be  vastly 
more  interesting  beyond  the  college  walls  than 
ever  it  has  proved  here,  if  you  have  once  acquired 
the  art  of  penetrating  into  the  imperfect,  and  find- 
ing in  limited,  finite  life  the  infinite  life.  "To 
apprehend  thus,  draws  us  a  profit  from  all  things 


we  see.' 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL   BE  ASSESSED   FOR   FAILURE  TO   RETURN 
THIS    BOOK   ON    THE   DATE   DUE.    THE   PENALTY 


DAY    AND    TO     $I.OO    ON    THE    SEVENTH     DAY 
B'ble                OVERDUE." 

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LD  21-100m-8,'34  r 

Binder 

Gaylord  Bros.,  Inc. 

Stockton,  Calif. 
T.M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off.  \ 


578298 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


